My sources of inspiration…
First up are Rich Stow and his gingerbeards. Rich Stow is an artist with a huge portfolio full of fun. Apart from being a beard lover myself, I love his sharp sense of humor. The looseness of his drawings and the non-perfection of it all (of course!), the rough hand lettering, the coloring outside the lines bring a smile to my face every time.

Next up in the beard department is Kelly Lasserre, whose bearded print I actually have hanging on my wall. Next to graphic images like the one shown here, and her pen and ink drawings, she also manages to compile powerful images out of strong combinations of planes of color, sometimes also adding different textures. There’s also some more detailed work out there, but to me she’s most impressive in this rough kind of work.

Another person that can be considered an expert at coloring is Sophie Alda. This woman manages to not put in any line in her illustrations! The forms and colors in her work completely come together and are able to bring alive the most playful, sometimes edgy, characters.

If you visit the website of David Fullarton you already are surprised by the creativity and the dynamic nature of his opening page. It’s so much fun seeing this explosion of lines, colors and words instead of all the plain structured black and white that is out there. This page completely reflects his work. He seems to be strong in every kind of media that is out there. He can throw around words as easily as pen and ink and pencils and is incredibly amusing doing it.

Last but absolutely not least, the world of Jenni Saarenkyla manages to touch me everytime that I enter. Her work is so delicate, her coloring amazing. No words, just let it fill you up…

I am Ellen Vesters, an illustrator based in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Ever since I was a little girl I was ‘the dreamy one’, the one that was always observing the world around her. With the years I felt more and more attracted to all that would differ from what was considered normal or standard. Perfection can bore me very easily where imperfection excites me. As people we are naturally attracted to the average, it makes it easier to make sense of the world around us, to bring order to chaos. But, don’t we agree that what makes the world a more interesting place really are those faces that differ from the average, or those imperfections in the most perfect of architectures? In my work I want to express my wonderment about the world around me: the disastrous noise of the city that could also be considered a symphony (as proven by Utrecht’s own blind city conductor slash vagabond Rudgir Glavurtic, interesting faces I pass everyday that don’t get noticed because they are considered unattractive, the difficulties we encounter that are in fact taking us to more beautiful places in life. With giving these observations a stage I want to make you see the beauty in things you wouldn’t see as beautiful before.

My background as a therapist is a big influence in my work. Children have always inspired me in both of my passions. I love putting a smile on people’s faces, even more a childs face.
As an illustrator I feel inspired by the world of Jenni Saarenkyla, Sophie Alda, Julia Sonmi Heglund, Rich Stow, David Fullarton, Esther Pearl Watson and Kelly Lasserre, among many many others. I love old techniques like using my pencils or nibs, making screenprints, but I am also very confident in using digital media. My work has been used for t-shirt designs by checkmyshirt.nl and was printed as such in the magazine Flow.